Dr. Méndez’s research engages comparative literary studies and feminist and queer theories to interrogate representations of genders and sexualities in print culture throughout Latin America. In particular, she addresses the various ways in which women writers have used the press to craft alternative spaces of cultural, aesthetic, and political intervention that disrupt heteronormative ideologies. She teaches at the intersection of Latin American Studies, Performance Studies, Transnational Feminisms, Queer Theory, and Feminist New Materialisms. She is the author of the book Crónicas travestis: El periodismo transgresor de Alfonsina Storni, Clarice Lispector y María Moreno (Rosario: Beatriz Viterbo Editora, 2017), and is currently working on a book on Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector. She has co-edited several anthologies of essays in Argentina, Chile, Spain, and the U.S.
Collaborative Two-Year Research Grant for a Project on Latin American Magazines awarded by CONICYT, Gobierno de Chile
Premio Victoria Urbano en la categoría de Monografía Crítica (Victoria Urbano Award on the Monograph Category) of the Asociación de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades for the book Crónicas travestis, July 2019.
El Affair Moreno, Co-Editor. Buenos Aires: Editorial Mansalva (forthcoming).
Urbanas y modernas: Crónicas periodísticas de Alfonsina Storni, Co-Editor. Valencia: Barlin Libros, 2019.
Crónicas travestis: El periodismo transgresor de Alfonsina Storni, Clarice Lispector y María Moreno. Rosario, Argentina: Beatriz Viterbo Editora, 2017
Escrituras a ras del suelo: crónica latinoamericana del siglo xx, Co- Editor. Santiago de Chile: Ediciones Universidad Finis Terrae, 2014.
Un libro quemado, Co-Editor. Buenos Aires: Editorial Excursiones, 2014.
Nosotras . . . y la piel, Co-Editor. Buenos Aires: Alfaguara, 1998.
“Operación Araña: Reflections on How a Performative Intervention in Buenos Aires’s Subway System can Help Rethink Feminist Activism.” Revista Estudos Históricos 33.70, 2020: 280-297.
“O sucesso do inacabado: Clarice Lispector e sua ‘Children’s Corner’ na revista Senhor” [“The Success of the Unfinished: Clarice Lispector and her ‘Children’s Corner’ in the Magazine Senhor”]. Journal of Lusophone Studies 4.2, Fall 2019: 103-123.
“Performando un activismo feminista: El trabajo de Debora Kuetzpal Vasquez en La Marca” [Performing a Feminist Activism: The work of Debora Kuetzpal Vasquez in La Marca], co-authored with Patricia Herrera. Revista Conjunto Casa de las Américas 192-193, Julio-Diciembre 2019: 53-57.
‘“Um “isto” que não chega a ser crônica’: Nuevos materialismos en la prosa de Clarice Lispector” [“‘This Something that Never Becomes a Chronicle’: New Materialisms in the Prose of Clarice Lispector”]. Cuadernos de Literatura 23.45, Enero-Junio 2019: 279-297.
“De crepusculares y garotas modernas: Las columnas travestidas de Alfonsina Storni y Clarice Lispector” [“Of Crepuscular Women and Modern Garotas: The transvestite columns of Alfonsina Storni and Clarice Lispector”]. Revista Iberoamericana 84.264, 2018: 637-654.
""Aulinhas de Sedução" [Small Lessons in Seduction]: Clarice Lispector on How (Not) to Be a Woman." Angelaki 22.1, 2017: 197-206.
“‘Só para mulheres (Just for Women):’ Alfonsina Storni’s and Clarice Lispector’s Transgression of the Women's Page.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 35.2, Fall 2016: 413-437.
“El Teje: Primer Periódico Travesti Latinoamericano, o de cómo resignificar cuerpos que hablen y militen” [“El Teje: Primer Periódico Travesti Latinoamericano, or How to Resignify Speaking, Militant Bodies”]. Letras Femeninas 42.1, Summer/Fall 2016: 143-155.
"Alternative Mappings of Belonging: Non son de aquí by María do Cebreiro and Rasgado by Lila Zemborain." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 91.6, September 2014: 637-658.
"Disorienting the Furniture: The Transgressive Journalism of Alfonsina Storni and Charlotte Perkins Gilman." Journal of Transnational American Studies 1(2), March 2010.
"Identidad a contrapelo: Subjetividad femenina y espacios urbanos en el diario de Carolina Maria de Jesus." Nuevo Mundo/Mundos Nuevos, Debates 2009, November 2009
"‘The Republic of Women:' Notes Towards a Critical Assessment," Brújula, No. 4, University of California Davis, December 2005.
"Memoria, espacio y lenguaje en Rasgado de Lila Zemborain." Memoria e imaginación poética en el Cono sur (1960-2010). Ediciones Corregidor, 2015: 163-176.
“Aliadas e insurrectas: Las columnas femeninas de Alfonsina Storni y Clarice Lispector.” Redes, alianzas y afinidades. Mujeres y escritura en América Latina. Ediciones Uniandes y Universidad de Chile, 2014: 177-193.
Journal of Lusophone Studies 4.2 Special Dossier on Clarice Lispector’s Journalism, Editor, Fall 2019.
“El Teje (2007-2012).” Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History. Howard Chiang, ed. Farmington Hills, MI: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2019.
